Houston startup's AI-driven networking and education platform to soft launch in TMC

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Flourishing Nexus recently won runner up in the innovation category of the city's Liftoff Houston competition. Photo courtesy of the City of Houston

Connecting medical professionals is about to get easier thanks to a new Houston company, Flourishing Nexus.

Next month, their digital platform, The Nexus, will debut to in a soft launch to a curated group of TMC employees.

“Think of it as a combination of existing platforms like LinkedIn, providing professional networking; Khan Academy, which provides excellent training and education; and a collaborative workspace like Google Workspace or Microsoft Teams, all enhanced by AI,” says Diane Nguyen.

Nguyen is a pharmacist by training, while her co-founder, Satid Thammasitboon, is an MD and master in health professions education.

The pair began working together in the health professions education space three years ago, but only established Flourishing Nexus in July of 2023. The company’s moniker refers to the concept of human flourishing.

“Our mission would be to promote human flourishing among health professionals,” says Thammasitboon.

The concept of human flourishing traces back at least to Aristotle, but The Nexus’ understanding of it is based on psychologist and educator Martin Seligman’s PERMA theory. The mnemonic stands for Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.

“We endeavor to bring these concepts of PERMA and human flourishing into the health professions space,” says Nguyen.

“Often our healthcare organizations or industries, when they hear health professionals are having issues with burnout, the response or reaction would be to increase incentive, financial support, or professional development to enhance resilience,” adds Thammasitboon. “We search for meaning we want to make a difference in the life of another rather than ‘everything is all about money.’”

Both professionals have globe-spanning careers. Thailand native Thammasitboon says that his endeavors have taken him across Europe, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, while Nguyen’s work has focused her attention on South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe.

“I realized that the key to providing better outcomes and health care for the patients was really dependent on the continuing education and training of the staff,” Nguyen says.

Those experiences proved to be the roots from which The Nexus grew.

But the team’s colleagues abroad won’t be among the first The Nexus users. That distinction will belong to Houston’s rich community of medical pros. And when the platform soft launches in January, it will be with two awards already under its belt.

The Liftoff Houston Startup Business Plan competition took place last month. Nine finalists, mostly entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds, were selected from among 100 applicants to compete in Liftoff’s Pitch Day. Not only was The Nexus among those competitors, it raked in a runner-up prize, as well as fan favorite in the innovation category.

Nguyen, who did the pitching, says that Liftoff helped Flourishing Nexus tremendously with both its preparation workshops and feedback from the judges.

“Sometimes you think you have a great idea but it’s not until you critically think about your own plan, analyze your plan, and prepare to pitch it that you really learn about it. This preparation helped us and strengthened our mission. Our business plan is much better,” says Thammasitboon.

Next up? Launching and growing The Nexus’ community. Nguyen also says they plan to participate in more competitions, including possibly Houston Community College’s Business Plan Competition. It’s one more way of bringing the abstract concept of human flourishing to a flesh and blood audience.

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TMC lands $3M grant to launch cancer device accelerator

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A new business accelerator at Houston’s Texas Medical Center has received a nearly $3 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

The CPRIT grant, awarded to the Texas Medical Center Foundation, will help launch the Accelerator for Cancer Medical Devices. The accelerator will support emerging innovators in developing prototypes for cancer-related medical devices and advancing them from prototype to clinical trials.

“The translation of new cancer-focused precision medical devices, often the width of a human hair, creates the opportunity to develop novel treatments for cancer patients,” the accelerator posted on the CPRIT website.

Scientist, consultant, and entrepreneur Jason Sakamoto, associate director of the TMC Center for Device Innovation, will oversee the accelerator. TMC officials say the accelerator builds on the success of TMC Innovation’s Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics.

Each participant in the Accelerator for Cancer Medical Devices program will graduate with a device prototype, a business plan, and a “solid foundation” in preclinical and clinical strategies, TMC says. Participants will benefit from “robust support” provided by the TMC ecosystem, according to the medical center, and “will foster innovation into impactful and life-changing cancer patient solutions in Texas and beyond.”

In all, CPRIT recently awarded $27 million in grants for cancer research. That includes $18 million to attract top cancer researchers to Texas. Houston institutions received $4 million for recruitment:

  • $2 million to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to recruit Rodrigo Romero from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City
  • $2 million to MD Anderson to recruit Eric Gardner from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City

A $1 million grant also went to Baylor College of Medicine researcher Dr. Akiva Diamond. He is an assistant professor at the medical college and is affiliated with Baylor’s Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Musk’s SpaceX spends $17B to acquire spectrum licenses from EchoStar

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX has reached a deal worth about $17 billion with EchoStar for spectrum licenses that it will use to beef up its Starlink satellite network.

The deal for EchoStar’s AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses includes up to $8.5 billion in cash and up to $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock. SpaceX will make approximately $2 billion in cash interest payments on EchoStar debt through November 2027.

SpaceX and EchoStar will enter into a long-term commercial agreement which will allow EchoStar’s Boost Mobile subscribers to access SpaceX’s next generation Starlink Direct to Cell service.

Shares of EchoStar surged 19% before the market opened Monday.

Last month AT&T said that it will spend $23 billion to acquire wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar, a significant expansion of its low- and mid-band coverage networks.

EchoStar said that it anticipates that the AT&T deal and the SpaceX transaction will resolve recent inquiries from the Federal Communications Commission about the rollout of 5G technology in the U.S. The FCC had been calling for hearings on whether Echostar was properly using the spectrum that it is now selling, and its efforts to make 5G more available to communities.

EchoStar said Monday that it will use the proceeds from the sale partly to pay down debt. Current operations of Dish TV, Sling and Hughes will not be impacted, the company said.

Houston students develop cost-effective glove to treat Parkinson's symptoms

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Two Rice undergraduate engineering students have developed a non-invasive vibrotactile glove that aims to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease through therapeutic vibrations.

Emmie Casey and Tomi Kuye developed the project with support from the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) and guidance from its director, Maria Oden, and Rice lecturer Heather Bisesti, according to a news release from the university.

The team based the design on research from the Peter Tass Lab at Stanford University, which explored how randomized vibratory stimuli delivered to the fingertips could help rewire misfiring neurons in the brain—a key component of Parkinson’s disease.

Clinical trials from Stanford showed that coordinated reset stimulation from the vibrations helped patients regain motor control and reduced abnormal brain activity. The effects lasted even after users removed the vibrotactile gloves.

Casey and Kuye set out to replicate the breakthrough at a lower cost. Their prototype replaced the expensive motors used in previous designs with motors found in smartphones that create similar tiny vibrations. They then embedded the motors into each fingertip of a wireless glove.

“We wanted to take this breakthrough and make it accessible to people who would never be able to afford an expensive medical device,” Casey said in the release. “We set out to design a glove that delivers the same therapeutic vibrations but at a fraction of the cost.”

Rice’s design also targets the root of the neurological disruption and attempts to retrain the brain. An early prototype was given to a family friend who had an early onset of the disease. According to anecdotal data from Rice, after six months of regularly using the gloves, the user was able to walk unaided.

“We’re not claiming it’s a cure,” Kuye said in the release. “But if it can give people just a little more control, a little more freedom, that’s life-changing.”

Casey and Kuye are working to develop a commercial version of the glove priced at $250. They are taking preorders and hope to release 500 pairs of gloves this fall. They've also published an open-source instruction manual online for others who want to try to build their own glove at home. They have also formed a nonprofit and plan to use a sliding scale price model to help users manage the cost.

“This project exemplifies what we strive for at the OEDK — empowering students to translate cutting-edge research into real-world solutions,” Oden added in the release. “Emmie and Tomi have shown extraordinary initiative and empathy in developing a device that could bring meaningful relief to people living with Parkinson’s, no matter their resources.”

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